medwireNews: The overall survival (OS) of patients with stage IV melanoma has improved on a national scale since the approval of the first-in-class immune checkpoint and BRAF inhibitors, according to a US National Cancer Database analysis.

“This study provides valuable perspective of the magnitude of the initial change in outcomes that first-generation novel therapies have had on a population level,” lead author Andrew Sinnamon (Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA) and team say in a research letter in JAMA Oncology.

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The CTLA-4 inhibitor ipilimumab and the BRAF blocker vemurafenib received US FDA approval in 2011, and this analysis of national-level outcomes showed that OS was significantly better for the 3586 patients diagnosed in 2011 and 2012 than for the 3352 patients who received their diagnosis in 2009–2010 and the 4869 diagnosed in 2004–2008, with corresponding hazard ratios of 0.89 and 0.85.

This improvement was driven primarily by the significantly prolonged OS of patients with stage M1c disease, a finding that mirrors the clinical trial results that showed no OS benefit with such agents in stage M1a or M1b patients, say the authors.